


The man who never knew Weltschmerz

by Aspyre



Category: Rush (2013)
Genre: Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:39:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspyre/pseuds/Aspyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are times when Niki remembers, with bitterness, longing, anger; but never sadness. It stayed a line never taught.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The man who never knew Weltschmerz

**Author's Note:**

> > This is not the scene I dreamed of. Like much else nowadays I leave it feeling stupid, like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere.  
> – J. M. Coetzee

When Niki met Senna, he felt a sharp tug somewhere in-between his rib cage and lungs, shortening of breath that he couldn't quite find the reason for at the time. His austrian blood denied him the existence of such annoying ideas. But the young man he once raced against was confident, brash and a wild animal on the track, with Niki knowing how great of a driver he had yet the potential to be. He wasn't reckless nor adorably arrogant, but he had the same spirit of bravado and guts that the top needed.

_Balls_ , as James would say. It scared him how similar the two men were in their ways. Trying to keep up with that kind of limitless energy and light was becoming too tiring for him, for there wasn't blond shaggy hair being shaken, pulled and hurried rutting for that delicious friction which carried the race itself with it. The scene before him was smudged with wrong colouring. The smoke should be there, he thought, because smoke was Nordschleife and entirely different accent of gasping for the lightness of air from some foot grazed in spilt coffee over heat in one long gone night of living with a tomcat incarnation. The kid didn't have one physical resemblance to Hunt, but all of his inner pointed to the thirst of the death rush that blasted him there this early.

No, not in this way, not this _calmly_ , this _eerily_ , he wants to yell; no, he can't forgive himself like _this_. It's supposed to be as big as they both are, as grandiose, as _disastrous_ ; this life of avoidance, staying away from reaching and taking, of tearing that utter and complete line that has been drawn forever. 

His face may be burnt away from it's expressional canvas that he was once able to bring forth, but his eyes followed the casket with disdain and anger, because the bloody asshole wasn't supposed to kill himself off this way. He was allowed to be stupid, yes, because Niki himself will come around and deal with the shit he makes, so James is _always_ supposed to grin and be yelled at and cause trouble. And the kid is supposed to live. To be greater than both of them, to set the limits no one will ever be able to breach. 

But Niki is a cold realist and he doesn't have the freedom towards imagination of life that can't be. His gaze follows the black earth and he doesn't even remember whose funeral it is anymore. The sky is unbearably bright and his face feels stretched from some alien strain and he knows James is the cause, still so annoyingly carved in the halls of his head.

An eyelid closed, a cap moved over the pair, a warm trail swallowed somewhere in the gut.

„Bitte, James.“ 


End file.
